They reached the picnic tables and a pretty blond woman in a pink sundress caught Rae in a hug.
“Rae, it’s so good to have you around,” the woman said.
“Because I bring good wine,” Rae responded, but her tone was fond and Leslie laughed and batted a hand at her sister-in-law. “Les, this is Erica and Wilder’s niece, Bryce Mitchell. Have you met?”
“Briefly,” Leslie said, and smiled at Bryce. “Nice to meet you again, anyway!”
“This is my brother’s wife, Leslie,” Rae went on, and indicated a couple of the masses of kids screaming and chasing each other on the grassy clearing sprawling out towards the campground. “And those are their kids, at least two of the brats out there, anyway.”
Riley came hurrying over the path then and yelled to the group in general, “Hey! Dad’s here!”
An excited hush fell over the crowd and the kids came running, excited to crouch behind the tables for the surprise. Moments later Riley again appeared, this time with Roger in tow, and as they topped the hill and came into direct view, the entire group let loose with, “Surprise! Happy birthday!” and Roger stopped, threw his hands in the air and started laughing as his face turned a watermelon pink.
Bryce later found herself seated unexpectedly at Rae and Bar’s table, drawn into conversation with Rae as they ate and ate. Matthew was nearby; her internal radar was never without his exact location, and he caught her eye from time to time, smiling with shiny lips that she longed to go and kiss. He, on the other hand, seemed to be interested in eating nothing but corn on the cob with tons of butter, elbow to elbow at a table full of rowdy guys.
“So where do you go to college?” Rae asked her at one point.
“I haven’t yet,” Bryce admitted.
“Well, there’s plenty of time for that,” Rae assured her, studying the younger woman for a moment, then realized she was searching Bryce’s face for a trace of someone she knew, a potential father, and was instantly disgusted with herself. Shit, and Bar was doing the same thing from six feet away, much more surreptitiously, though he didn’t fool Rae for a second. And the most ironic thing was, the only person they both really saw when the looked at Bryce was Michelle. Even her voice sounded the same.
As the evening sank into night, many of the guests took their leave; by the time Wilder had a roaring campfire going, only about a third of them were there to gather around on split logs, and he looked out at the assembled faces and asked for requests. Roger, who played a mean fiddle, was also poised with bow in hand, his weathered face flushed from drinking, eager to play some good music.
“Ooh, let’s hear Yesterday,” Debbie, drunk and nursing her countless beer of the night, cooed.
Wilder raised one eyebrow at her, strummed a few chords and then said, “I was thinking we could start with something a little less mellow.”
“Well, hell, how about some Johnny Horton?” Roger said, and plucked out the first few notes of a rousing song Bryce didn’t recognize, although a murmur of approval rose from just about everyone else, and even Rae started singing along. Bryce watched her uncle and his father-in-law play in the warm, flickering light of the fire, forcefully holding herself back from moving the scant four steps it would take her to be on Matthew’s lap.
He was to her right, just around the curve in the circle of logs, angled so they couldn’t quite look into each others’ eyes. Emma had curled up against his side, and he’d snuggled his arm around her; Cody was sitting with his forearms braced against Matthew’s other jean-clad knee, singing along brightly with his dad and grandfather. Matthew, who’d been drinking since mid-afternoon, caught Bryce’s gaze and winked teasingly at her before she darted her eyes quickly away, praying that no one had noticed the gesture.
An hour and 10 songs later, the beers she’d been drinking caught up with her bladder, and Bryce slipped away in the middle of the sixth verse of Down by the Bay, requested by Cody and Emma. The night air was sharply chilly away from the fire and the wind in the pine needles sounded agitated and slightly threatening as she hurried back up the path towards the main lodge, rubbing her bare arms with both hands. Above her the stars had been blotted out by a thick layer of clouds, and Bryce jogged the last few yards, wishing she had a sweatshirt.
At the campfire 20 yards away, Rae was about to take her own leave when she noticed that Matthew Sternhagen’s dark gaze had followed directly after Bryce. No one else seemed in the least aware, and Rae wondered if she was just making too much of the observation, but in the next moment he gently extracted himself from the pile of kids and rose to his deliciously full height, stretched slightly and then walked off in Bryce’s footsteps.
Hmmm, thought Rae, her intuition prickling. But she instantly chided herself, almost laughing aloud at how absurd her imagination had become. She rose, said her good-byes, and headed for the parking lot.
***
Matthew caught up with her on her return trip, just behind the main lodge, and Bryce heard him coming and wasted no time jumping directly into his arms. In the thick, pitch-darkness he lifted her off the ground and buried his face against her neck with a growl. She held tight, breathing his scent which was flavored with butter and chocolate tonight, and the smoky tinge of the campfire.
“Bryce, Bryce, Bryce,” he murmured, rocking her side to side for a moment. “God, I love you.”
“I can’t take sitting that close to you and not touching you,” she said back, her hands all over him, and he lifted his head and kissed her flush on the lips, her legs bent parallel to the ground three feet beneath her.
“You can make up for it now,” he offered, lowering his eyelids a little and slamming her with his most seductive smile.
She did, holding him tight, his own arms wrapped nearly double around her, his mouth warm and sweet, so utterly right against her own, as though they’d been molded for each other alone. They kissed and kissed, until she groaned against his lips, thinking that she would be happy kissing him until the stars burned out in the sky. Against her belly she felt his cock pressed hard and strong, and groaned again, loosening one arm to slide her hand down and clutch him.
“Where can we go?” she whispered.
But just as his lips opened to reply Erica’s voice came drifting up the path, and it was almost as though she was on top of them. Bryce slid instantly to the ground, her hands fluttering nervously to straighten her shirt, her hair; Matthew had the wits to disappear, which he did into the woods, moving so swiftly and silently that Bryce felt for a moment that he had simply dematerialized into the night air.
Erica appeared scant seconds later, and Bryce had the presence of mind to stroll back down the path and toward the activity. Erica was walking her cousin Lee to her car, and the two women paused in their conversation to smile at Bryce, Erica mouthing the words Hi, honey. They were past her in the next second and she stopped and looked wildly around for Matthew, but realized with a small ripping in her heart that he had truly disappeared; they would have to wait until later.
No, Bryce, she thought, her feet momentarily frozen as her mind strained frantically away from the sudden onslaught of pain. Don’t think about how this is how it will always have to be. Secret meetings, never being able to acknowledge their feelings to their family and friends, never being able to touch before the eyes of others. Deeper than that, far more cutting, far more internal-damage-causing, was the fact that they could never be married, could never have children. And eventually they would have to move on from each other, because there was no other choice.
For a moment she bent double from the ache, hands on her knees, overwhelmed by the nausea of that knowledge. Bile rose along that back of her throat, cut off her breath as the world slipped sluggishly out of focus. She thought for a moment that she might faint, but the kids were coming her way now, chattering and laughing, and she forced into her limbs every last ounce of strength and stood up, plastered a smile on her face.
Not 10 yards away, on the trail behind the main lodge,
Rae Taylor stood silently with both hands pressed to her lips, not sure how to react to what she had just witnessed. Michelle’s daughter and Matthew Sternhagen; so much for laughing at her own imagination just moments ago. Rae bit her bottom lip, her thoughts churning. A moment later she resumed her walk to her car, slower now, but more resolved than ever. Like it or not, it was time to find Michelle.
***
“But what about snakes?” Bryce asked uncertainly in wee hours of Tuesday morning, still clad in her panties and Matthew’s sweatshirt, which she could hardly bear to part with long enough to run through the wash. Although Matthew, blissfully and exquisitely naked, was treading water a few feet from her own drawn-up knees she was not yet convinced that skinny-dipping under the dark velvet of a 3:00 a.m. sky was something she dared to do; the lake lapped invitingly, an expanse of black silk, and Matthew was right there, his hair slicked back from his forehead, his teeth flashing in the dark as he grinned at her, the majority of his body submerged under the water. She insisted, “Cody sees snakes at the beach all the time.”
He groaned in simulated exasperation, moved swiftly and lifted himself out of the water, bracing his elbows on the dock where she sat. Water purled over his back and huge shoulders and she wanted to lick the paths of it, but settled instead for tracing his dark eyebrows with one index finger. Her heart pounded harder just having him closer to her body; his face was uncharacteristically chilly from the lake. He caught her hand and lightly bit her teasing finger, then kissed it.
“Baby, get in here,” he said, wrapping his cold hands around her warm bare thighs, and she squeaked. “There’s not a damn snake for miles, I promise.”
She rolled her eyes at him but pulled the sweatshirt over her head in one smooth motion and was pleased to hear his low murmur at the sight of her breasts, nipples at military attention in the still night air. She moved to slide in beside him, her bottom lip clenched in her teeth, and he grinned at her like the most gorgeous demon in existence, then backed off and ducked fully under the water.
Her gasp was cut off by the lukewarm water closing momentarily over her head, and she surfaced with a splutter and thrashed around in panic; Matthew had not yet reappeared, and the lake seemed huge and no doubt snake-infested without him near. In the next second something as strong and cold as iron locked around her left ankle, and though she knew it was just Matthew fooling around, she screamed as though it were a shark, and he broke the surface immediately, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe, reaching to engulf her in his arms. She splashed at him, angry, not allowing him to get near, but Matthew could not be stopped and she was against the solidness of his chest before she even saw him move.
“Baby,” he gasped out against her wet hair, still laughing. “For the love of all that’s holy, be quiet! Do you want Wilder down here with the shot…the shotgun?”
She quit trying to wriggle away but continued to harbor thoughts of dunking him, though it would be like attempting to move a stone bridge the way she wanted it to go…in other words, impossible. She gave in and pressed her nipples against the sleek hardness of his wet chest. The water felt so good on her bare skin and Matthew tipped forward and kissed her lips, her neck, her lips again, and then said, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s swim awhile.”
***
Erica sat up in bed, her heart going like a jackhammer, her breath short. She felt as though she’d just woken from a bad dream, though she could not recall any actual content. Instinctively she reached over and touched Wilder’s back in the darkness of their familiar bedroom; her husband murmured in his sleep and shifted position slightly, easing the tension in her belly a fraction. Moments passed and she came more fully awake, though could not completely shake the sensation that a scream had wakened her.
“Damn it,” she mumbled, and slipped from the bed and then into her yellow robe, made the rounds as she had often when the kids were small and still waking up at night. She peeked in on the girls first, feeling her heart relax as the sound of their steady deep breathing met her ears. She moved to replace the covers on Emma, brushed her fingertips over Evelyn’s cheek, then crept soundlessly into Cody’s room and gently tucked his right leg back into the bed. He sighed and shifted, and his leg popped back out from beneath the blankets.
Erica closed Cody’s door with a soft click, found herself heading down the stairs and towards Matty’s room before she knew what she was doing. His door was closed and she paused, reluctant to go back to bed without checking on him too, ridiculous as it might seem at his age. For a long moment she lingered in the hall outside his door, but at last she sighed and climbed back up to her room, snuggled into her pillow, stretched her left leg enough to feel Wilder, and tried to get back to sleep.
***
“I want to see your room,” Bryce whispered to Matthew as they crept like naughty, wet-haired children through the woods. It was almost morning and they were playing with fire not being in the house yet. “It’s the one room in the whole house I haven’t been in.”
Matthew, holding her hand tight in his much bigger one, grinned over his shoulder at her and replied, “We’ll sneak back for lunch.”
And so six hours later they met at the main lodge, exuding far too much casualness had anyone been inclinded to notice, and walked up the path together. Once the deep woods had cut off any view of the campground, Matthew took her small left hand back into his right, brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
“I have never made love to anyone in my own bed,” he told her.
Her stomach went weightless at his words, though she couldn’t resist teasing, “I find that very hard to believe.”
“Whad’dya mean?” he fired back, grinning at her. He was wearing his sunhat and swim trunks, his sunglasses trailing down his bare chest on a green cord. She was again dressed in her borrowed daisy bikini, a damp, sandy towel wrapped loosely around her hips. With her free hand she twisted at her heavy wet hair, which was practically steaming in the humidity. Above them the cloudless blue sky was bisected by the sharp borders of the towering pines all along the gravel road.
She swung their joined hands, smiling back at him with utter joy, refusing to acknowledge prickling inner layer of terror that seemed to be constantly beneath the surface as each passing day brought them closer to the reality in which she must leave. His eyes were so dark and dear to her; she felt as though she had known him for her entire life and then some, before and after, for all of time.
They were met at the screen by Nunu, who yawned and stretched and lazily resumed licking his front paws. Matthew stooped and stroked the cat’s wide orange head, then led the way to his bedroom, into which Bryce had not yet had the nerve to peek, even last week when she’d been virtually alone in the house.
The door was open and sun fell in lazy streaks across the dark blue blanket on his big, unmade bed, stirred slightly by the shadows of leaves from outside. She entered first, moving slowly and carefully, taking it all in, wanting to run her hands over everything that he had touched, imbibe all of the essence of him that lived here. Matthew remained in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching her with a half smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
“Oh, look at you,” she said, bending to inspect a few photos on his bookshelf. Here he was in a red and silver uniform, number 11, posed on the ice with his hockey stick ready to strike, giving the camera his best teenage mug-shot expression, totally smileless, totally sexy. There were hockey pictures from all four years of high school, and she traced his face with her fingertips, wishing with her whole heart that she had lived here then, could have attended his countless games dressed in cute jeans and a puffy jacket, cheering and screaming for him from the stands. Never mind the small fact that she was his half-niece. She let the fantasy play out for a moment, then smiled at the picture of a much younger Matthew, maybe 10 or 11, at the edge of Rose Lake, tanned, baseball-capped and laughing at something, holding a huge stringer of fish.
“Yeah, I was a real bad-ass o
n the ice,” he said fondly. “Used to think I was good enough to go pro.” He snorted once with self-depracating humor and added, “But I still like playing on the local league.”
His room was a mess, clothes strewn all over the floor and along the back of a huge, faded armchair in one corner. He laughed at himself again and bent to scoop his arms full of laundry, which he pitched unceremoniously into an already-overflowing wicker hamper in the closet.
“What, no basketball hoop on the back of the door?” she teased. She loved seeing his things all over this space; in some ways it was more intimate than anything else. She resisted the urge to lift his pillow and bring it to her nose, breathe him in. Instead she moved to her favorite spot in the wide world and wrapped her arms around his waist, not caring that his arms were burdened with another pile of clothes. He dropped these instantly and caught her close, warmly kissed her left temple as she stretched up on tiptoe, buried her face against his neck and inhaled deeply.
“Mmmm,” she murmured.
“Bryce,” he murmured back, amazed yet again by how much a simple gesture, a small sound from her lips could stir him so fiercely.
“You smell so good,” she said, clinging back, eyes closed. His hands spread wide along her ribcage, fingers splayed like starfish on her nearly bare skin. With one smooth motion he unhooked her strapless bikini top and let it fall between their bodies to the carpet.
“Oops,” he whispered.
She pressed against the naked hardness of him, shifted her shoulders just slightly, rubbing her breasts against his chest hair. He swept the hat from his head and caught her even closer, kissed her deeply with the lips she fantasized about every second they were not on her skin. Though the door was wide open they kissed with abandon; Bryce had just about managed to get his slightly-damp swim trunks untied without breaking the contact of their mouths, their breath coming fast and hard, hearts hammering almost loud enough to cover the noise of Wilder coming in the screen door not 20 steps away.
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